SAVAGE RITES
🖤💋 SAVAGE RITES 🔥🖤
(The Blackwood Heirs…)
Book 1 in the De Luca Series
THEME: The Price of Power
By Midnight Sparkles
COPYING IS NOT ALLOWED ⚠️
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Chapter 19&20
I woke up to the smell of him.
It was the first thing that hit me Sandalwood.
Dark roast coffee.
For a terrifying, disoriented second, I thought I was back in the Archives, pinned against the bookshelves with Julian. But the mattress beneath me was too soft, the sheets too silky.
I opened my eyes.
The room was bathed in the gray light of dawn. I was in the center of a massive bed with black sheets. Nico’s bed.
Memory crashed into me like a physical blow. The library. The drive. The way he had torn my tights. The way I had screamed his name.
I sat up, gasping, clutching the silk sheet to my chest.
I was alone.
The other side of the bed was made, the pillow untouched. He hadn’t slept beside me.
He had taken what he wanted my submission, my pleasure, my dignity and then he had left me in his bed like a discarded trophy.
I looked down at myself. My gray skirt was twisted around my waist. My tights were in shreds, hanging off my legs like spiderwebs.
My inner thighs were sticky and sore.
“Oh god,” I whispered, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes.
I had come apart for him. I had begged him.
You fit in better with the wolves than the sheep.
His words from the party echoed in the silent room. I wanted to deny them. I wanted to believe I was still the good girl from Ohio who liked history and hated violence.
But a good girl wouldn’t have clawed at his hair while he ruined her. A good girl wouldn’t be feeling this hollow, aching need for him to come back and finish what he started.
I scrambled out of the bed. My legs were shaky, my muscles protesting. I felt branded. The scent of him was in my hair, on my skin, seeped into my pores.
I needed to leave. I needed to get back to my room, scrub my skin raw, and pretend this night never happened.
I grabbed my shoes, my heavy, scuffed boots and didn’t bother putting them on. I ran barefoot across the plush carpet, unlocking the heavy door with trembling fingers.
The hallway was quiet.
I ghosted down the corridor, past the kitchen where the coffee machine hummed on a timer, and slipped into Room 304.
I locked the door and leaned against it, sliding down until I hit the floor. I hugged my knees to my chest and waited for the tears.
But they didn’t come.
Nico had taken my tears, too. All I had left was a cold, hard knot of fear in my stomach.
I crawled over to the nightstand where I had left the black phone. I needed to know.
I tapped the screen. It lit up, blindingly bright in the dim room.
One new message.
It wasn’t from Nico. It wasn’t from my father.
It was from a number I didn’t have saved, but I knew the area code. It was a campus number.
He didn’t break my fingers. I can still play.
And I can still fight. Don’t let him win, Elena. – J
Julian.
A sob finally broke loose, escaping my throat as a ragged gasp. He was alive. He was okay. And he was an idiot.
Don’t text me, I typed back, my fingers flying.
He reads everything. Please, Julian. Stop.
I hesitated. My thumb hovered over the send button.
If I replied, Nico would see it. If I replied, I was confirming that Julian could still reach me.
I deleted the message.
I deleted the thread.
I threw the phone onto the bed as if it were a venomous snake.
I needed a shower. I needed to wash Nico De Luca off me before I dissolved.
I stripped off the ruined clothes, kicking them into the corner. I stepped into the shower and turned the handle all the way to the right.
The water was scalding. It turned my skin pink, then red. I scrubbed with a rough sponge until I hurt, trying to scour away the memory of his tongue, his hands, his voice.
But you can’t wash away a memory.
I stayed in the shower for forty minutes. When I finally stepped out, wrapped in a thick towel, the steam had filled the room.
I felt cleaner, but not clean.
I walked into the bedroom to find clothes. I needed armor. Something high-necked.
Something that covered every inch of skin he had touched.
But when I stepped out of the bathroom, I froze.
I wasn’t alone.
Nico was sitting in the armchair by the window.
He was fully dressed in a black suit, crisp and tailored. His hair was wet, combed back severely. He looked like he was ready for a board meeting, or a funeral.
He was holding my phone.
He didn’t look up when I entered. He just stared at the screen, his thumb idly tracing the glass.
“You shower for a long time,” he said. His voice was devoid of emotion. It was the voice of a stranger.
I gripped the towel tighter around my body. “Get out.”
Nico looked up then. His gray eyes were flat, unreadable. He looked at my wet hair, my flushed skin, the white knuckles gripping the towel.
“I tried to warn him,” Nico said, tossing the phone onto the bed. It bounced on the mattress. “I told him to stay in his lane.
But Julian Thorne suffers from a hero complex. He thinks if he sends you cryptic text messages, he’s saving you.”
“I didn’t reply,” I said quickly. “I deleted it.”
“I know,” Nico said. “I have a mirror of your phone on mine. I see what you type before you even hit send. I saw you type the warning.
That was… touching.”
He stood up. He loomed in the small space, sucking all the oxygen out of the room.
“Why are you here?” I asked, backing up toward the bathroom door. “Did you come to finish what you started? Or just to mock me?”
Nico’s jaw tightened. A flash of the wildness from last night sparked in his eyes, then vanished behind the ice.
“Last night was a lapse in judgment,” he said coldly. “It won’t happen again.”
The words stung more than a slap. He was dismissing it. Dismissing me.
“Good,” I spat. “Because I hated it.”
Nico smirked. It was a dry, humorless twitch of his lips. “We both know that’s a lie, Elena. But if it helps you sleep at night, you can keep telling yourself that.”
He walked over to the bed and picked up a duffel bag that I hadn’t noticed before. It was black leather, expensive. He threw it at my feet.
“Get dressed,” he commanded. “Pack the bag. Essentials only.”
I looked at the bag, then at him. “Where are we going? Do I have class?”
“No class today,” Nico said. He checked his watch a heavy silver Rolex. “We are leaving campus for a few days.”
“Why?”
“Because your father has surfaced.”
The air left my lungs. The towel felt too heavy, the room too hot.
“Where?” I whispered.
“Not in France,” Nico said. He walked toward the door, pausing with his hand on the frame.
“He made a mistake. He tried to move money. He’s in New York.”
New York. That was only a few hours away.
“We are going to the city,” Nico said. “We have a family penthouse there. We will use it as a base of operations.”
“I don’t want to go,” I said, panic rising. “I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to be there when you…”
“When I what?” Nico turned back, his expression lethal. “When I put a bullet in his head? You don’t have a choice, Elena. You are the bait. Remember?”
He looked me up and down one last time, his gaze lingering on the curve of my shoulder where the towel dipped low.
“Wear something warm,” he said, his voice dropping an octave. “It gets cold in the city. And I don’t want you shivering unless I’m the one making you do it.”
He walked out.
I stared at the empty doorway.
My father was in New York. Nico was taking me there. And Julian was left behind, nursing a bruised throat and a broken ego.
I looked at the black duffel bag.
It looked like a body bag.
I dropped the towel and started to dress.
There was no point in fighting.
I packed the bag in five minutes.
There wasn’t much to take. A pair of heavy woolen trousers, two thick sweaters, the toiletry bag the stylists had left, and the silk robe. I shoved them into the leather duffel, moving with robotic efficiency.
If I stopped moving, I would start thinking. And if I started thinking, I would start screaming.
I zipped the bag shut. I looked around the room, Room 304, my gilded cage. I wondered if I would ever come back here. Or if New York was the end of the line.
When I walked out into the hallway, Nico was waiting by the elevator.
He had put on a long black wool coat over his suit. He looked like a reaper. He didn’t offer to carry my bag. He just pressed the button for the garage.
“Is Matteo coming?” I asked, my voice echoing in the silence of the elevator.
“No,” Nico said, staring at the digital numbers counting down. “Matteo is staying to clean up the mess with the administration regarding your uncle. And Dante is handling security here.”
“So it’s just…”
“Just us,” Nico finished, his eyes sliding over to me. “Does that make you nervous, Elena?”
“Yes.”
“Good. It should.”
The elevator opened into the underground garage. It was a cavern of concrete and fluorescent lights, filled with cars that cost more than most houses. But we didn’t walk toward the SUV we had taken to the party.
Nico walked toward a low, sleek sports car. A black Aston Martin. It looked fast and mean.
He unlocked it, the lights flashing like predator eyes.
“Get in,” he said.
I threw my bag into the trunk he popped open, then slid into the passenger seat. The car was low to the ground. The interior was all black leather and carbon fiber. It smelled like him.
Nico got in the driver’s side. He started the engine. It didn’t purr; it snarled.
He didn’t look at me. He reversed out of the spot with ease and gunned it toward the exit ramp.
We burst out of the garage and into the gray morning. The rain had returned.
Nico drove fast. Aggressively fast. He took the curves of the campus road with one hand on the wheel, the tires biting into the wet asphalt.
We passed the library. We passed the science center where Julian had held my hand.
I looked out the window, watching Blackwood disappear in the rearview mirror.
“Say goodbye,” Nico said softly.
I turned to him. “Am I coming back?”
Nico shifted gears, the engine whining as we hit the open highway. “That depends entirely on your father.”
“You said he was in New York,” I said, twisting in my seat to face him. “What exactly does that mean? Did you catch him? Is he in a trunk somewhere?”
“Not yet,” Nico said. His eyes were fixed on the road, scanning for threats, or maybe just police. “He was spotted in Manhattan. Lower East Side. He’s trying to meet with a fence to sell some… assets.”
“Assets?”
“Diamonds,” Nico said. “Uncut. Part of the haul he took from the syndicate safe.”
My stomach turned. “He told me he only took cash. To pay off loan sharks.”
Nico let out a short, harsh laugh. “Elena, your father didn’t take cash to pay debts. He took bonds, jewels, and ledger files. He took leverage. He was planning this for years. He’s not a desperate man; he’s a greedy one.”
“You’re lying,” I whispered, though the doubt was a heavy stone in my chest.
“Am I?” Nico glanced at me. “He called you for money yesterday. He didn’t ask if you were safe. He didn’t ask if you were happy. He asked for the account number.”
I looked back out the window at the passing trees. They were a blur of green and brown.
“Why bring me?” I asked. “If you know where he is, why do you need me?”
“Because rats are skittish,” Nico said. “If my men approach him, he runs. If he sees me, he shoots. But if he sees his daughter…”
“You want me to walk into a trap,” I realized, horror dawning on me. “You want me to be the shield.”
“I want you to be the lure,” Nico corrected. “He thinks you are safe at Blackwood. We are going to change that narrative. We are going to let him know that I have you. And if he wants to see you alive again, he will come to us.”
“He won’t come,” I said quietly. “If he’s as greedy as you say… he won’t trade the money for me.”
Nico was silent for a long moment. He reached out and turned on the radio. Classical music filled the small cabin.
“Then we will find out exactly what you are worth, won’t we?” Nico said.
We drove for two hours in silence.
The landscape changed from the rolling hills of New England to the industrial grit of the highway approaching the city. The traffic got heavier.
The skyline of New York appeared in the distance, gray spires piercing the clouds.
I felt claustrophobic. The car was too small. Nico’s presence was too big.
Every time he shifted gears, his hand brushed near my knee. Every time he checked the side mirror, his gaze swept over me.
I was hyper-aware of him. My body remembered the weight of him from last night, and it was confusing my brain.
“Stop fidgeting,” Nico commanded.
“I can’t help it,” I snapped. “I’m going to my father’s execution. Excuse me if I’m a little restless.”
“You aren’t going to an execution,” Nico said.
“You are going to a negotiation.”
“With a gun to my head.”
“The gun is metaphorical. Unless you try to run.”
He slowed down as we hit the bridge traffic. The car crawled forward.
“Tell me something,” Nico said, his voice dropping to a conversational tone that was almost more unsettling than his anger. “When you kissed Thorne… what were you thinking?”
I stiffened. “I don’t want to talk about Julian.”
“I do.” Nico looked at me. His eyes were intense. “Did you think he could save you? Did you think he would whisk you away to his father’s summer house and you’d live happily ever after?”
“I thought he was kind,” I said honestly. “I thought… for a second… that I wasn’t just a thing to be used.”
Nico’s hands tightened on the leather steering wheel until his knuckles turned white.
“Julian Thorne is a boy,” Nico said with disdain. “He plays at being a savior because it makes him feel moral. But he doesn’t know the cost of things. He doesn’t know what it takes to keep the world spinning.”
“And you do?”
“I know that the world is built on blood,” Nico said. “And I know that kindness is a lie people tell themselves to sleep at night.”
He turned to look at me fully as the traffic came to a standstill.
“I am not kind, Elena. I never will be. But I am honest. I told you I would break you. I told you I would use you. I haven’t lied to you once.”
“You manipulated me,” I argued. “You made me ruin my uncle.”
“I showed you who you really are,” Nico countered. “And last night…”
He leaned across the center console. The air in the car vanished. He invaded my space, his scent overpowering me.
“Last night, I showed you what you really want.”
My breath hitched. “I don’t want you.”
“Your mouth says no,” Nico whispered, his gaze dropping to my lips. “But your body… your body screams yes. You came apart in my hands, Elena. You begged me to own you.”
“Because you forced me!”
“I didn’t force you to enjoy it.”
He reached out and traced the line of my jaw with his thumb. It was a light, feather-soft touch that made me shiver.
“You hate yourself for it,” Nico analyzed, his eyes searching mine. “You hate that the monster makes you feel more alive than the Prince Charming ever could.”
“Go to hell,” I whispered, turning my face away.
Nico chuckled darkly. He sat back in his seat as the traffic started moving again.
“We’re already there, Little Mouse,” he said, gunning the engine. “Look out the window.”
We were crossing the bridge. Below us, the gray water of the East River churned. Ahead of us, the canyons of Manhattan rose up like iron bars.
“Welcome to New York,” Nico said. “Let the hunt begin.”
TBC
